


The Boy and The Flare

by ShadowoftheLightningPack



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Descent into Madness, Major Illness, description, injuries, suggested romance, this took a while
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 14:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16097120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowoftheLightningPack/pseuds/ShadowoftheLightningPack
Summary: What if Winston didn’t commit suicide soon after he was infected? What if he'd tried to live?





	The Boy and The Flare

Note: Story is all told from Winston's P.O.V. there will be topics that could be sensitive to some, such as, for example but not limited to: character death, self-harm, talk of suicide, the Flare, which any TMR fan knows the outcome of.

 

WINSTON'S P.O.V.

 

"Come on, we've gotta go!" Thomas shouts, waving us on. "Come on come on come on!"

 

Minho's hot on his heels, and a shocked expression comes over Newt's face. He shoulders his bag and hurries after the other two, nudging Frypan after him, with Aris taking the lead. I drag Teresa away from the couch and shove her in front of me. My hand drifts down to the gun, hooked in my belt. Not far behind us, eight or nine Cranks follow, moving faster than should be possible.

 

"Go go go go go!" Minho yells.

 

Thomas reaches the end of the hall and slams his shoulder against the door.  
"Locked...It’s locked! Frypan, help me get the door open!"

 

I draw the handgun quickly and aim at the narrow hallway we’ve just come through.  
"I’ll hold them off, you guys get the door open, and hurry!"

 

My eyes focus on the terrifying...THINGS in front of me. Humanoid, but not humans. Pale skin stretched out across their bodies, blanketed vine-like tendrils in the place of their veins, empty or crazed eyes, thin bodies that jerk unnaturally as they move, many have hideous looking injuries. If they weren’t coming towards me at a million miles an hour, I might’ve felt sorry for them, but they charge at me with bloodlust in their eyes. I know enough from what little information we’d received that a bite or scratch from one of these things could infect a Non-Immune. The Rat Man had said we were all Immune, not much to worry about, but my heart pounds as they get closer and closer with every passing second. I’m almost out of bullets too.

 

"It’s open, it’s open!" Thomas shouts, and relief fills me.

 

I at once turn and darted towards the now-open door. Freedom lays just beyond it, we can lose the Cranks, see the outside world. However, only seconds later, I hit the ground and feel something grab me, dragging me backwards by the leg and then crawling roughly up me to reach for my throat. I struggle against it, unable to suppress my screams of fear and then, of pain as long fingernails, almost claws, sink into the flesh of my midriff. Thomas turns and gasps when he sees the situation. I fully expect them to run off and leave me. They left some of the Gladers when we escaped from the Grievers in the Maze. Why wouldn’t they leave me? Jumping into a group of Cranks that big was practically suicide unless ALL of them jump in. I’m going to die. This is it, this is how I’m going to go out, torn to shreds by zombies, or eaten alive, like Jeff by the Grievers during our escape. I visibly flinch at the idea of either one, then my body convulses as the creature tears at the newly-inflicted injury, making me cry out. Thomas and Aris double back, and Newt follows as they hurry to drag me out from under the Crank, grabbing me by the arms. There’s no WAY this is going to work. Somehow though, impossibly, it does.

 

"Hey, you good?" Thomas asks, throwing one of my arms around his shoulder while Newt takes the other and Aris retrieves the fallen gun.

 

I nod.  
"Fine. Thanks for saving my ass there."

 

Newt returns the nod.  
"We can’t afford to leave anyone behind, and it would've been MORE than cruel to leave you at the mercy of those bloody monsters. Mercy...hah. I doubt they’ve got any."

 

"Yeah," Aris agrees. "They might’ve just eaten him alive like the cannibals I hear they become at some point."

 

Newt shoots him a sharp glare, then jerks his head towards me.  
"NOT makin' things any better, Aris. We’ve got a victim with us."

 

"I’m...I'm fine."

 

"Did it break skin?" Aris asks, sounding almost...nervous. "If it broke skin, we need to know if you’re Immune or not."

 

"How we will know?" I manage.

 

"Well if you’re NOT Immune, symptoms will start showing within three or four days. At least, that’s what I heard," Aris says.

 

I glance down at the injury, now a huge gash, but thankfully not good, yet blood pours from it.  
"Oh it broke skin all right," I groan. "And it hurts like hell...it feels like something's eating me from the inside out." I narrow my eyes. "Probably LOOKS like it too."

 

"As soon as we're safe, maybe Clint can take a look. I’m glad we’ve still got a Med-Jack with us," Thomas mutters.

 

I nod, but once we escape, I doubt there’s anything even the best of Med-Jacks could do, if it's really as bad as they say. I’m right. We break out of the building and flee across the sand, the Cranks slow, a few stopping to fight each other, spitting and snarling. As long as they’re trained on each other and not us, I’m fine with that. Only two pursue us, and soon they fall behind until we lose them totally. We're safe now.

We keep moving several hundred metres after the Cranks fell behind us, wanting to put some decent distance between us. Finally, much to my relief, Thomas orders us to stop and get some sleep, and I’m MORE than happy to do so. It hurts and I want to be free of the pain just for a while, and getting some rest can’t be a bad thing. Laying down eases the pain from the wound, but before I sleep, Thomas insists that Clint, the Keeper of the Med-Jacks, checks the wound to judge how bad it is and if it can be treated. He examines it and nervousness flickers through me. If I’m Immune, then it’ll just hurt until it heals up, like when I would cut myself by accident in the Bloodhouse, but what if I’m NOT Immune? If I’m not Immune...I’m going to die from this. Go crazy and become like the monsters that attacked us, then eventually, I'll die, it'll kill me. The thought of that scares me more than I've ever been scared before. Even running off to the Maze to fight the Grievers didn’t scare me as much as the thought of becoming one of the Cranks, those things had lost their minds, their humanity had been destroyed. Clint gently lays his hand just beside the torn flesh. Even the muscle there is torn, causing agony with every tiny motion. Despite this, I hold on to a faint hope that maybe it just FEELS that bad, and maybe it’s not as bad as I think it is.

 

"How bad is it?" I ask.

 

Clint winces visibly and pulls back.  
"Uhh...not TOO bad."

 

"Don’t lie about it. If it’s bad, just tell me," I urge him.

 

He heaved a sigh, shaking his head.  
"Sorry, man. It IS actually pretty bad. It’s all I can do to stop the bleeding, and from there, we just have to wait and see."

 

So he does exactly that, applying enough pressure to stop the bleeding, which hurts like hell, and I bite my lip until the skin breaks there too in order to stop myself from crying out, but there’s bigger concerns than just how the injury FEELS. Clint tells me as he does that I’ve lost enough blood to be concerned, but he still washes it out as best he can and bandages it. I feel bad about that, he’s wasting what precious little water we have to clean out the injury of someone who may not even be Immune.

 

"Get some sleep and I’ll check up on you again as soon as you wake up tomorrow," he promises.

 

I nod.  
"Thanks."

 

THE NEXT DAY...

 

"We’ve gotta get going, come on! We have to cover ground!" Minho tells us, that being our wake-up call.

 

I groan and having forgotten momentarily about the wound, I’m reminded when I try to stand. Clint and Teresa rush over when I gasp, then fight back a cry with a hiss instead. Teresa glances at Clint as he checks the now-dirtied bandage and removes it, cursing. Teresa then tears part of her own sleeve off and passes it to the Keeper. He uses it for a makeshift bandage.

 

"S-Stop wasting supplies," I beg, my voice slower than I’d expected.

 

"Your speech is slurring," Clint tells me. "Don’t waste your breath, it’s okay. We're all going to be okay, YOU'RE going to be okay."

 

Then the group prepares to set off. Clint gives me a sympathetic look, as if he feels sorry for me. I envy them. They’re Immunes, I don't even know if I am, and I find myself praying that I am and this’ll all come to pass, but I don’t know. I already feel weak and every now and then I get a bit dizzy. I keep trying to convince myself it’s just the heat from the sun, but part of me knows otherwise.

 

Teresa offers me a hand up and carefully pulls me to my feet. She lets her hand rest on my shoulder.  
"Hey. You going to be okay?" She asks gently.

 

I bite my lip.  
"I...I hope so."

 

"I’ve never heard you so nervous." Her eyes meet mine. "Hey. Things are gonna be okay."

 

I lock eyes with her.  
"Promise me."

 

"Huh?"

 

"Promise."

 

"I promise things are going to be okay."

 

"No. Promise me that if I’m not Immune and have the Flare...that the others will get to safety, where they can live, away from WICKED and all they’ve done to us."

 

"I can’t promise everyone will make it, but I can promise that we won’t give up. Just promise ME that you won’t either."

 

"I can agree to that now, but if I’m really NOT Immune, the shuck disease will work a number on my head."

 

"I know, Winston. Trust me, I know."

 

So far, so good. I’ve been able to keep up with the group, but when Thomas tells us we're going to have to do a bit of travelling uphill, I groan. I’ve been just barely able to keep up like this with Teresa's help, I have no idea how I’ll fare going uphill.

 

Newt turns to look at me.  
"Minho, Tommy, what about Winston? He’s still injured, you CAN'T expect him to climb these bloody dunes."

 

Minho twists over his shoulder to look at me.  
"Sorry, Winston. We just don’t have a choice."

 

I nod.  
"It’s okay. I’ll...I'll try to keep up," I promise. "I don’t wanna be a hindrance to anyone."

 

"Kinda late for that," Mutters Frypan.

 

Clint shoots him a glare.  
"It’s not his fault, and if you remember," he starts, "the reason he was hurt in the first place was because while we were all standing around trying to open a locked door, he stood there to protect us." His glare sharpens, but I know it’s because of concern and stress. "You could've easily been in the same position."

 

He DOES have a point, and Frypan seems to know this and doesn’t verbally argue. They stare silently at each other for a moment, Clint's arms crossed and gaze intent as he stares at the Keeper of the Cooks. It’s Frypan who looks away first, and, satisfied, Clint leads the way forward. As we slowly start up the hill, my scattered thoughts start to spin and I try to slow them down. I know that the faster the mind works, the faster the Flare sets in. We head up the hill and while it’s a walk I could usually make with ease, after just a dozen metres or so, I feel my energy draining away almost totally and the wound starts acting up again. I clench my teeth and keep going. Frypan is wrong. I won’t be a hindrance. I won’t let them have to slow down or stop for my sake, I won’t waste their supplies. They don’t have to take care of me. I can manage myself, right? I'm just as able as any of them. At least, that’s what I tell myself. As for if it’s true, who knows? Minho doesn’t slow, doesn’t let us stop and rest and it’s to my surprise that I find myself wanting-no, NEEDING- a break. This usually wouldn't have been this hard. Teresa stays at my side. I’d expected her to go up to Thomas by now, but she carefully stays beside me, setting herself a slower pace so she could let me keep pace with her. I’m thankful for that. She keeps near my shoulder in case I fall over backwards or something. Falling down that shuck hill and having to restart would SERIOUSLY suck when it’s hard already.

It feels like forever until we’ve finished, even though it’s only been a matter of a few minutes when the group reaches the top and stand there for a moment to catch our breath, and I find myself lagging behind Teresa a bit. Noticing this, she grabs me by the arm and half drags me up the last few paces. Minho stops and turns around to look at me, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes focus on me, and while there’s sympathy there, there’s also a strange coldness to his expression.

 

"You need to stop for a while?" He asks. "Shuck it, your wound isn’t just slowing YOU down. The rest of these shanks are worried and keep slowing down so you can keep up."

 

I clench my fists at my sides.  
"I’m fine. Don’t treat me like I’m a baby!" I snap.

 

Frypan freezes.  
"He’s snapping at you. That’s not normal, is it?" He glances at me from the corner of his eye. "I mean...he’s never had the best temper control or anythin' of us, but this ain’t normal, him snapping so fast at us, especially just for trying to help," he notes.

 

I take a step back and shake my head and just like that, the moment of irritation is gone.  
"Sorry...I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just tired of being a burden on the group," I tell them.

 

Minho gives a faint nod.  
"Alright, there’s a little house or cabin or something down there. We move to there and use today for rest, then camp for the night," he declares.

 

I frown at our leader.  
"Seriously, we could EASILY cover fifteen or twenty miles still today. Why stop? Is it because of me?"

 

Minho's shoulders tense.  
"No. You and me hardly talk anymore, and you don’t exactly have many friends here. Why should we care enough to stop runnin' from WICKED to help you?" He demands.

 

Clint stares at him.  
"Minho. Stop denying that you’re doing stuff 'cause you wanna help him. It’s the same story for me, and clearly for Teresa too."

 

Minho heaves a sigh.  
"Fine. Let’s just get going though, and Clint, stop obsessing over the shank. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want us to give him any special treatment."

 

"Treatment is my JOB, Minho. I’m the Keeper of the Med-Jacks, which, I might add, you voted for."

 

Minho rolls his eyes.  
"Doesn’t mean there aren’t times when I regret it." The words are muttered under his breath, just barely loud enough that I can catch them.

 

Clint either doesn’t hear the comment or opts to ignore it.  
"Don’t tell me when to do my job and how to do it. You do your job and I’ll do mine."

 

We move to the small shelter. It’s broken and the wind comes through from every side, but it’s better than nothing. We’ve found a couple of beds and tons of blankets. Most people settle on the floor with blankets over them and their backpacks as pillows. Newt takes one of the two beds and pulls Thomas up to lay with him, where he buries his head against Newt's shoulder. Newt's arm wraps around his shoulder and he pulls the Runner closer to kiss his forehead as they settle down. The sight of them makes my heart ache. Was there a time where people could just enjoy the feeling of being in love? A time when they didn’t have to worry about making it to the next day, when they could fall in love at work, or at school, rather than while fighting for their lives? Yet at the same time, it’s sweet, and I find that watching those two together brings a smile to my face.

Teresa smirks from the corner of her lip when she catches me staring and she lightly elbows me in the ribs, and even that light gesture hurts, to my alarm, but not exactly to my surprise. Minho lightly touches my shoulder and points towards the other bed. He wants me to take it? This is confirmed when he himself moves away and curls up under one of the blankets, closing his eyes and retiring for the night. Teresa helps me settle comfortably on the bed and bites her lip as she looks first at my eyes, then her gaze travels down to the wound, just barely covered, the edge of the nasty wound faintly visible from under the too-small shirt. It’s not looking any better, despite the bleeding stopping and the bandage preventing further infections. Teresa's hand trails slowly off my shoulder and she shoots me a half-smile before moving away, but I can tell at once that it’s forced. Then she’s off to find her own place to sleep. Once she’s gone, despite Minho's direct orders not to check the wound again, Clint comes to do just that, and this time, from my current position, I can see it. The sight of it makes me sick. This is coming from the guy who worked in the Bloodhouse. Clint unwraps the makeshift bandage and I force myself to look at the wound and wish at once that I hadn’t. It’s turned a strange mix of black and crimson. The bleeding has MOSTLY scabbed over or, in some places, just UNDER the now-surprisingly-thin layer of skin. Thick black tendrils have started growing from the centre of the wound and the edges of the broken skin have turned a darker brown. Just the sight of the horrid injury makes even the Keeper of the Med-Jacks flinch and grimace. He rummages around in his pack and produces his water bottle, with which he takes water and washes out the wound again, clearing away the last traces of blood and the few flecks of sand that had somehow gotten in. Then he goes through his pack again and a nervous expression comes over his face when he fails to find whatever he had been looking for. The look of worry on the face of my doctor isn’t exactly the most reassuring thing in the world, and I force my thoughts not to go crazy on me again. That’ll only make it worse if I’m NOT like the rest of them. At this point, I’m beginning to think I was right, and that I’m NOT Immune, which is quite possibly the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever been able to think of, which is ALSO not all that reassuring.

 

"Winston, I...uh...don’t have another bandage I can wrap the wound with, so-"

 

"It’s okay," I promise, my voice quieter than I had meant it to be. "Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I...I'm just a bit tired," I lie. Who could sleep in this condition?

 

He eyes me.  
"You sure?"

 

I nod.  
"Yeah. I promise. I’m just tired," I repeat.

 

He adjusts the collar of his shirt.  
"Okay, if you’re sure," he agrees. Then he pulls my shirt down enough to carefully cover the wound, protecting it from anything that might be in the air. "If you need me at ANY point, call, okay?"

 

I nod again.  
"I will, I promise."

 

He offers a forced smile before moving away to sleep as well. I close my eyes and pull the blanket lightly overtop me as to avoid brushing it against the wound, then force myself to relax. If we're here anyway, I may as well at least TRY to get some sleep. I let myself sink into the surprisingly soft mattress and my shoulders and the muscles in my back relax as I slowly drift off.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing I wanted to try out. I’m in a roleplay and I’m playing out him with the Flare, so that made me think what it might be like for him and I decided to write this, so yeah, sorry if it was bad or anything.
> 
> Comments appreciated as always.


End file.
